His Real Life

Tom’s deeply absorbed in his crossword puzzle. He’s halfway through and thinks he has it pretty well figured out. The words seem to be magically falling for him. He’s in a zone as he calmly mows down the puzzle.

Suddenly he’s jarred out of his reverie by the ring of the phone. He lets it ring hoping whoever is calling will hang up, but after eight rings he picks up. It’s his son.

“Steve, can I call you back? I’m in the middle of something,” Tom asks.

Though he can’t put his finger on it, Tom finds Steve irritating and feels guilty. But Tom can’t help how he feels.

“Dad, my job is being eliminated and I need someone to talk to,” Steve says.

“Well, you’ll find another job.” Tom’s ready to hang up. He doesn’t want to hear about it. All he wants to do is get back to his puzzle.

“The job market is so bad and there’s the mortgage, the car payments, the daycare. I don’t know where to start. What should I do?” He hears the alarm in Steve’s voice.

“When you were three I was working up in Norwich and got canned.”

“I didn’t even know we lived in Norwich,” Steve says.

“You were too young to remember. I got into an argument with my boss and he fired me. I didn’t have a dime. We spent July and August living in a tent in Rocky Neck State Park.”

“We were homeless?” Steve’s surprised.

“I was nervous and upset in the beginning. But after a while I got to like living in the park. It was the best vacation I ever had. We could barely afford food and diapers. It wasn’t till late August that I found work.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“The weather was hot and there were lots of flies and mosquitoes. But we made it through. I’d make a fire and we’d have hot dogs, burgers and baked potatoes. Lots of baked potatoes. And we’d sing and laugh and you kids would play. We’d go swimming in the lake. I came away from that summer feeling that no matter what happened they couldn’t destroy me. Loosing your job is not the end of the world. Something will come up.”

“And if it doesn’t? What am I going to do?”

“If you look hard enough and think about your life you’ll come up with something. It might not be exactly what you hoped for but you’ll land on your feet. And maybe you’ll be better for it.”

“I know what you’re saying is true but at the moment I’m in a bad place,” Steve says.

“When you were a junior in high school and I was working for Martins Electric I had five minutes to clean out my desk while the Human Resource Manager and a security guard looked on. They accompanied me out the side door.”

“ What a humiliating situation,” Steve says.

“I hadn’t done anything to deserve that. I was accused of stealing from petty cash. But I never did it. One minute I was the employee of the month and the next I was out. When they lead me out, all I had to show for my five years was a coffee mug, some photos of the softball team and a crystal plaque that said, ‘Employee of the Month’. Later they found the culprit but it was too late.”

“Dad you never talked about it. You never said a word.”

“Steve I know what you’re facing. It’s a nightmare, but coming through it makes you stronger.”

“I’ll try to hang in there, Dad,” Steve says.

“I know you will. It’ll give you a chance to look around and think about what to do and maybe change things.”

Tom hangs up and goes back to doing the puzzle. But now it’s more difficult. The ghosts of his working life are haunting him. He starts to sweat as he remembers layoffs, firings, accidents and death threats. One time while managing a construction job in Newark he had his life threatened twice. He was But he’s managed to survive them.

Every so often when these employment memories creep back into his dreams he’ll wake up in a cold sweat. Today they’d call that post-traumatic stress syndrome. But the trauma lasted for forty-five years.

Tom tries to get back into the puzzle. He’s working on 31 down. It’s a six-letter word for flower beginning with the letter “O”, but he isn’t making any progress. He’s about to throw down the puzzle when he thinks of it, Orchid. That’s it! He’s excited as he writes orchid in 31 down. Now he’s working on 32 down. It’s a seven-letter word for a get-together of old friends beginning with “R”. This one’s easy. It’s reunion.

He’s starting to get rolling when Karen walks in the door and drops her keys on the table. “Did I have a rough day today.”

Here we go again, he thinks. Every day’s a rough day for her. Tom doesn’t answer. He tries to ignore her and continues working on his puzzle, but he has to stop.

“Today I had two kids fighting in my class. I couldn’t stop them. They were really huge. I called the office but no help came. And when I stepped in to break it up I got punched really hard. Look at that,” she says pointing to the bruise on her shoulder.

He nods his head and listens. He rolls his eyes and looks at his watch.

“What’s the matter? You’ve got an appointment?” She asks.

“No, there are just some things I need to take care of.”

It’s been like this with her for years. Every night it’s always the same story. “What do you feel like for dinner?” He tries to change the subject.

“Dinner! How can I even think about dinner when I’ve just been mugged?”

“I’ll order some take-out. How about spare ribs and vegetable low mien?” He knows she like ribs and lo mein.

“I get punched out and all you can talk about is ordering dinner,” she says.

“We all have to take some lumps. But we still have to eat,” he says.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You could try doing something else. If you worked in an office you wouldn’t have to put up with this stuff, but there would be lots of other things.”

“I only have two years to go for my pension and lifetime health benefits. And I do get my summers off, “ she says.

“I know it’s hard for you but hang in there. Do the time and then walk away with a smile on your face. You only have to put up with that stuff for a little while longer,” he says.

Karen Pauses and says, “You’re so understanding.”

“You’re being sarcastic. How about a glass of wine?”

She nods. He opens a bottle of Chianti and pours two glasses. They click their glasses and sip their wine. He leans over and gives her a kiss.

“By the way, Steve called before,” Tom continues. “He just lost his job.”

“Oh, the poor kid,” she says. “I’ll have to call him.”

“I think he’s in rougher shape than you are,” Tom says. “I went through what he’s going through. It wasn’t easy for me and it’s not any better for him. It’s never easy. Is it?”

“It certainly not,” Karen says.

“Unless you’re a doctor or a lawyer or have your own business you’re always at their mercy. Things go along okay for a while and then turn sour,” Tom says.

He dials the restaurant. “This is Rossi at 103 East Main St. apartment 10 D. I’d like to order spare ribs and a small vegetable lo mien.”

Karen puts up some water to boil. “It was just awful. In my free period I went into the teachers room and cried the whole time. Teaching those animals is so dehumanizing. Millie, the Librarian saw me and really got scared. She sat with me and tried to calm me but I couldn’t stop crying. ”

He wants her to shut up but doesn’t know what to say.

The food arrives and they eat in silence. That’s how it is on most nights. Either she’s angry or he’s angry or they both are. And it’s not because of something that might have just happened.

He remembers brief flickers of a time long ago in the early days of their marriage when they shared their deepest feelings. They would go for long walks along the beach holding hands. He was working as a millwork salesman covering the New York territory and Karen had just started teaching. He would get leads and go around and talk to builders and architects and try to get them to buy his millwork.

But he had a special problem because the product he was selling was more expensive than the competition. His product was made from expensive hardwoods while his competitors were made from pine. And price was all-important in the New York market.

In the beginning he was lucky and made a couple of sales. He thought that this would be easy. But then six months went by and there wasn’t a nibble. Day after day he’d get up and go out and call on potential customers but it was always the same story.

“It’s nice but too expensive.” He tried to keep up his routine of going out prospecting for new customers, making phone calls, reading the new construction reports, but all of this was to no avail. There were no takers. And after awhile he became demoralized and stopped making the calls.

After lunch he’d go to the ballpark or the track. And at night he’d come home feeling both guilty in disgusted. It was eating him up alive. But he’d try to keep up appearances. He blamed himself for being a lousy salesman.

Despite his failure his boss did nothing. He just said, “Go out there and keep hammering away. Something will turn up.” Almost 9 months went by without a sale or even a close call. His boss urged him on and kept paying his salary. As time went by it made Tom feel smaller and smaller. But he didn’t know what to do.

The one bright spot in his life in those days was Karen. They would go out for Pizza or Chinese. One night he told her, “I’m not producing. I’m not making any sales and my boss just keeps paying and paying. I feel like a kept man.”

She squeezed his hand and looked at him, “Telling me this makes me feel like a million bucks.”

At first he didn’t understand what it was that made her feel this good. But then Tom realized that sharing his most intimate sorrows had brought them closer. And there were other sharing moments that she had with him where she’d tell him about her parents and how he’d rescued her. And he reassured her that he would take care of her.

Then there was that building project in Saint Louis and he was away from her for the first time. It was dragging on for months. He was lonely. At night he’d go back to the hotel have dinner and watch TV. When he’d get stir crazy he’d go to a movie or for a walk.

One night he went into the hotel bar and the bartender introduced them. She was a pretty brunette with a warm smile. He bought her a drink and they talked for a while. Later they ended up in his room.

Afterward, he almost felt physical pain. But he it was too late. The damage was done. What he had with Karen was gone. He looked at himself in the mirror and felt waves of self-hatred. But he couldn’t undo what he’d done. Then he calmed down and said to himself, ‘Be a man’. And somehow, though wounded, he collected himself and went on.

When he returned from St. Louis he told her. He said that the woman meant nothing to him. But Karen was furious. She hit him over the head with her purse and pummeled him with her fists. He didn’t try to stop her.

After that, they stayed together. He tried to make it up to her, but things were never the same. And here he was thirty-eight years later and he still regretted terribly what he had done. And tonight, his past, all of it seemed to be hanging there right over him like a dark cloud. It had all returned.

After dinner, Karen made her nightly phone call to her friend, Barb, a teacher from the neighboring town. They had a lot in common and commiserated about their jobs and lives.

Tom went into the den. He eased himself down in his recliner and turned on the TV. The Monday night football game was on. The Jets and Giants were playing. It was the first period and the teams were banging heads at midfield with neither one making any headway.

There was a time out and the commercial came on. It was a Thanksgiving scene. A horse drawn sleigh pulls up in front of a beautiful log cabin on top of a snowy mountain. An attractive tall, tanned, gray haired woman wearing a long hand woven Indian dress is standing on her front porch smiling down at the horse drawn sleigh which has just arrived. In it are her children and grand children. They’ve come for thanksgiving. They’re all bundled up in blankets, warm coats and bright-colored scarves. Tom can feel her love radiating as she comes down the stairs to greet them. The grand kids jump out of the sleigh and run to her. She reaches down and hugs them.

What a beautiful family, he thinks. And for a brief instant he longs to be a part of it.